A fear of spiders is one of the most common phobias in the world, and it's easy to see why. Despite the vital role that spiders play in the ecosystem, homo sapiens have never had a great relationship with web-weaving wall-crawlers. From Shelob in Lord of the Rings to Aragog in Harry Potter, our culture has proliferated many nightmarish images of gigantic spiders over the years, and even the bravest dude in the room can break out in a cold sweat when they see something hairy scuttling around in their bathtub. Check out this spider "swimming" over water:  [[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/sVDV4wtZ-izxriqNH.mp4||sVDV4wtZ]] If you're not a fan of spiders, then Australia is your version of hell on earth. The land down under features a number of huge and terrifying species of spider: some harmless, others deadly. These spiders aren't shy about inviting themselves into your home unannounced, and have an uncanny ability to infiltrate even the most secure buildings with ease. Case in point: a terrifying image has emerged on social media this week, which shows an Australian woman's terrifying encounter with a gigantic huntsman spider. <img class="size-full wp-image-12543865" src="https://img.vt.co/2019/07/2efbef46-screenshot-2019-07-31-at-10.55.17-compressor.png" alt="An image of a huntsman spider. " width="681" height="705" />[[imagecaption|| Credit: Facebook/Laree Clarke]] Maree Clarke, who hails from Townsville in Queensland, was startled one day when she spotted the arachnid in question scurrying across her ceiling. Taking a snap of the monster on her phone, she uploaded the picture to Facebook, and captioned it: "Is there anyone that could remove this from my house?? Now!???" <img class="wp-image-12543912 size-full" src="https://img.vt.co/2019/07/6ef8bd51-screen-shot-2019-07-31-at-12.35.22.png" alt="spider" width="1120" height="600" />[[imagecaption|| Credit: Facebook/Laree Clarke]] Naturally, Twitter had quite the reaction to the gigantic beast: [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Nekrozs/status/1155868892461486081]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Ayano7Aishi/status/1156273366250205187]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/niall_law25/status/1155156435833171968]] Huntsman spiders, also known as giant crab spiders, are one of the largest species of arachnids in the world. They're so large, in fact, that they often feast upon small lizards and mammals. Their bite is venomous, but they rarely attack humans; only resorting to that when forced to protect their eggs. In more terrifying news, this spider was discovered making a home in a man's ear: [[jwplayerwidget||https://content.jwplatform.com/videos/Vke9qePy-Q0L14jDU.mp4||Vke9qePy]] Thankfully, Maree was able to remove the animal from her house without killing it. I'll bet she'll remember to lock all her windows and close her doors next time!

Monster huntsman spider invades Australian home

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